Folks:
Last July I sustained an injury while swimming open water not far from shore. It involved a motorboat (piloted by a person unknown to me) in a place where it ought not have been, and came very close to removing my left foot. Bad. (I will refrain from any more narration.) Four months of recovery, and I was able to reenter the (chlorinated, indoor!) water in November. I finally started swimming with regular frequency this year, and had a very good January. But travel and other things badly curtailed my ability to swim in February and March.
I decided to swim at Nationals, yet can only make Sunday. That's okay. I am swimming simply to celebrate that I CAN. That said, I would like to do as well as possible. So here is my question:
I am swimming the 50 fly and 50 free on Sunday. I have four weeks to be ready-ish. I will have 5 swims in this week. So frequency up, but feeling a bit sluggish yet.
How would you prepare to swim a couple of all-out sprints in competition from an improving aerobic base with a month to do it?
This is a low stakes question, as again, I am doing this because I can, not because I expect PBs. Have swum nationals before, and I am generally a sprinter (swim free, fly and IM in most meets).
Thanks for any suggestions!
I would just make sure you get some time off the blocks at least once a week, working on the start, the underwaters, the breakout and getting into and out of the turn as efficiently as possible at full speed. It's the timing stuff that seems like little things that's taken me the most effort to figure out again since coming back to swimming.
I'd also do some breath control work, since you're obviously going to want to breathe as little as possible for those 50s.
What JPenge said about starts, breakouts, and turns. On top of that. I'd do lots of max effort 25's on a long interval, something like 1:45 or 2:00.
I use one of these to time every rep, looking for consistency: www.amazon.com/.../ref=sr_1_2
When the times start to climb, I move onto an easy recovery set.
Very sensible advice! I work on going hard into turns, but not starts. That's so obvious, but hasn't been on my mind. Will incorporate, for sure. Thank you, neighbor. (I see we are both in STL)
You might want to adjust 50s stroke count and body position (head) a bit to see what is working best for you at this point, and then lock that in for the rest of your practice time. Practice how you want to race. Good luck - should be fun.
Very sensible advice! I work on going hard into turns, but not starts. That's so obvious, but hasn't been on my mind. Will incorporate, for sure. Thank you, neighbor. (I see we are both in STL)
Are you swimming for SLAM at Nationals? If so, I'm sure we'll run into each other Sunday.
